Step By Step In Northern Ireland

October 14, 1997

It happened behind closed doors. No cameras were allowed. The meeting took only a brief time.

Nonetheless, the handshake Monday between British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams was a dramatic moment in the history of Northern Ireland. And it was another small but important step toward reconciliation.

Not for more than 75 years had a British prime minister met with a member of the political party allied with the Irish Republican Army, an underground, mostly Catholic organization with a history of violence that is devoted to ending British rule in Northern Ireland.

That fact gave Mr. Blair's symbolic act all the more impact. This prime minister is willing to take a risk for peace. He'll pay a price. British conservatives had urged him not to shake hands with Mr. Adams. An angry Protestant crowd booed the prime minister and called him a traitor after the meeting with Sinn Fein's leader in Belfast.

But Mr. Blair has shown he is willing to spend some of the immense store of political capital amassed in his landslide election earlier this year in changing British policy toward Northern Ireland. His predecessor, John Major, had excluded Sinn Fein from peace talks. That was a dead-end policy that left many Catholics feeling hopeless.

If the Protestant majority and Catholic minority are to peacefully coexist in Northern Ireland and together plan their mutual destiny, all parties must participate.

Mr. Blair's generous gesture shows that Britain fully supports Sinn Fein's place at the table as long as the IRA honors the cease-fire it declared in July.